As the commanding officer of a U.S. Coast Guard vessel, Lt. Cmdr. John Henry says he was trained not to hit things.

With one exception.

Henry was at the helm on Thursday, Dec. 19, as the Coast Guard cutter Bristol Bay rammed through 26 miles of ice from the Saginaw Bay shipping channel into the mouth of the Saginaw River. The mission: clear a path for commercial traffic ferrying goods in and out of the area.

A former Bay County Friend of the Court employee who filed a federal lawsuit alleging a supervisor routinely sexually harassed her has received a six-figure payout from the county.

A Freedom of Information Act request submitted by The Bay City Times to Bay County resulted in the disclosure that the county paid Patricia McIver and her attorney, Victor J. Mastromarco Jr., a sum of $250,000.

The second of two Bay City teens police say mugged a classmate and was subsequently charged with felonies has accepted a plea deal.

Jeffrey D. Herzberger, 18, in late November appeared before Bay County District Judge Dawn A. Klida and pleaded no contest to single counts of assault and battery, larceny less than $200 and possession of marijuana, all misdemeanors. A no contest plea is not an admission of guilt but is treated as such for the purposes of sentencing.